43) Building work begins

The tremis (hole in the floor for the staircase) begins to be formed in my studio

The builders were due to arrive last Monday.  They rang to say that it was Tout Saints on the Tuesday and most people were taking a pont (bridge day) on the Monday, so everything would be closed for two days.  They would therefore come on the Wednesday.  They then emailed to say they had been delayed by a man digging a trench (which they had to fill with concrete) and they would, instead, be with us on Thursday.  And on Thursday 13 Brumaire an 220 de la Revolution (3 November 2011), they actually turned up.  By now we weren't really expecting them ....

Rubble and dust are the inevitable result of all this destruction

Luckily G was not leaning out of the tower window with no clothes on fastening back the shutters, as she was when the three young blokes arrived to cut down a tree the other Saturday morning.  Great progress has been made over the past week, though it has mainly been demolition.   Apart from the DUST and the NOISE, it is a little bit alarming to see our (once) beautiful house being partially destroyed.

The staircase opening progresses

One of the biggest, and most testing tasks, is to re-locate the staircase.  Initially, this has involved cutting and bashing a rather large hole in the (pot and beam) floor.  Almost all houses in France that have, at some stage, been rennovated in any way at all seem to have these "pot and beam" floors.

Now we are connected to the attic

They put a series of reinforced concrete beams in, drop in honey combed brick "pots" in between the beams, then they pour concrete over the whole lot to form a rigid floor. We were a bit sceptical as to how effective these were but, having now seen how difficult it was to make our tremis in the floor, we are rather impressed and dedicated converts.

Part of the reinforced concrete beams from the "pot and beam" floor construction

The sitting room becomes the main store room

In order to get on with the job of destruction (which takes place in all over the house) we have had to move most of our things into two rooms - and cover everything in dust sheets during the day/periods of destruction. All the kitchen units had to be dismantled and moved into the sitting room, which then made it even more difficult for me to remember where things were (not my greatest attribute at the best of times).  Making a cup of tea became a major project.  First find a mug, then the tea (which container has Earl Grey and which PG?), where did the fridge go for the milk and why the **** is the sugar not next to the tea bags?  Having finally located the kettle, the bloody lead is too short to reach any of the sockets, and then into another room to fill it with water.......

Wall paper stripping in the new upstairs bathroom

While the builders have been knocking down walls and making holes in the floor, G  and I have been stripping off wall paper.  Both of us have become quite expert at this, but our approach is quite different.  I try to get a whole section thoroughly damp and then, very slowly, peel of a complete strip all in one go.  G seems to prefer to pull lots of little strips off one at a time which, in my (humble) opinion takes much longer in the end, and causes an awful lot more mess.  However, in the interests of domestic harmony, I have conceded that this is an equally legitimate methodology.

The wallpaper before we stripped it off

I have a slight worry in the back of my mind, though, that "one day" someone will tell us that we have destroyed part of the l'histoire culturelle in stripping off this jazzy wall paper.  No doubt we will be visiting a museum sometime in the future, and there will be a recreation of a chambre typique from the 1970's which is the spitting image of our house before we destroyed it.

Noise and dust as the destruction continues

The electrics become shockingly exposed

The electrics have become a bit of an issue.  Obviously as you knock down walls, hidden wires become exposed and the switches and sockets once embedded in the plaster no longer are.  We therefore now have lots of trailing wires and electrical bits floating precariously around the rooms.  Very important not to wander about at night with the lights off (though half the lights are not connected any more).

The other thing is the power of the builder's tools, particularly the angle grinder, kept blowing the fuses.  Needless to say, the first time this happened, we discovered we had no spare fuses (trip fuses were evidently not invented, or hadn't been introduced to France, when the house was originally wired).  Once we (they) had blown several of the new fuses we decided to rig up their more powerful tools to the cooker socket.  This seems to have worked.  The only downside is that we can't cook whilst they are working, not that we have really got a kitchen anyway (see photos below).

The ghostly remains of a dead mouse and its newspaper nest

When we moved the old kitchen units it became evident that a family of mice had once lived behind the kick-board for many years in some previous era - yukkkk.

Not so easy cooking in a kitchen full of rubble and DUST and NOISE

The wall is almost down between the old larder and the kitchen

The guys told us they were going to knock down the wall of our temporary clothes cupboard, so we moved all our stuff into our temporary bedroom (about the only place not having a wall knocked down).  Unfortunately they ran out of time, so we had to move all the stuff back again before we could get to our bed (and then, of course, back again the next day so they really could knock the wall down).

The only access to the studio is blocked up before they make a new doorway to the left of it

An interesting sort of open plan en suite loo in what will become our new bedroom

We keep telling ourselves it will all be worth it in the end and we hope, if we do this often enough, we might actually start to believe it.

42) Richard the Lion Heart and loos

A loo

G and I went to look at bathroom fittings last week in Villeneuve sur Lot, about an hour away.  It turned out we could only look at things in catalogues (which we could have done on the internet anyway) so it was quite a long way to go for not a lot of use.  This was our plombier's bathroom fittings supplier. It seems that the French plombiers are not satisfied with charging about double what you would pay in England, but they then want to make a profit out of you from the things you buy (loos, taps, basins etc.).  The very helpful, and rather pretty, girl could only quote us what she described as the "public" price (though she didn't/wouldn't speak a word of English).  If we are to negotiate a discount we have to do this out of the profit the plombier is making.  And just so they don't miss out, if we buy the stuff direct from another supplier, the small print on the devis says they will increase their charge for fitting the appliances by 25% if the things don't come through their own supplier.

Far reaching views from Penne d'Agenais

Still, on the way back, we called in at Penne d'Agenais, a place we had wanted to see.  It is in a most spectacular spot, perched high above the river Lot, with views for miles around.

King of the Castle (Richard the Lion Heart's) - photo by the dirty rascal

The Duke of Guyenne built a castle here, and said Duke later became King of England, aka Richard the Lion Heart  There is not a great deal left of it now, but above is a picture of G sitting on the remains.

Notre-Dame de Peyragude

It also has a rather weird basilica right on top of the hill, just below the castle ruins, called Notre-Dame de Peyragude.  The blurb says it was started in 1897, the same date as the Sacre-Coeur in Paris, but not finished until 1948.  It is not really very attractive, but it has a silver dome which glistens spectacularly in the bright sunshine at the top of the hill.

The silver/tin foil dome?

I don't know if it is actually made of real silver (presumably if it was, it would tarnish), but close up it looks like tin foil.  Maybe the same architect who built the equally  incongruous concrete church tower at Tournons d'Agenais had something to do with it?

Hideous concrete tower attached to the old church at Tournon d'Agenais

41) A flavour of Autumn

Although it is lovely to have the heat and bright sunshine of summer, the Autumn is a wonderful time here.  The colours become sombre whilst also rich and intense.  And the light is magical, as are the stars.

A family of five red legged partridge came to visit us , all dressed in Autumnal colours

And we are still gathering walnuts.................

This little cricket evidently decided Autumn is upon and decided it was time to move inside.

40) Post script to the Frog

The tree frog may be hidden in here

We have discovered that the tree frog is living in our virginia creeper.  The reason we know this is because we heard a quite loud quacking, duck-like sound coming from the creeper.  We searched but there was no duck. There was in fact no room for a duck in the creeper, so it had to be something else making that noise.  After a quick search of the internet I found a posting by Lang Elliott which said that the call of a male tree frog is "....a harsh quank, quank, quank [sic] repeated about once a second."  I do not know who Lang Elliott is or what his credentials are, but it all seemed to ring true (and I suppose frogs go quank rather than quack to distinguish themselves from ducks, and thus avoid potentially embarrassing confusion).

The perfect camouflage for a tree frog

The only trouble is, virginia creeper is the perfect camouflage for tree frogs.  The green of their leaves is the exact same green as the frog, and the red tips to the leaves and the red stalks exactly match the tree frogs red toes.

Virginia creeper coloured tree frog

As a consequence, it is very difficult to spot the tree frog, and it's hard to tell where the "quanking" is coming from.  We haven't wanted to get too close in our search in case it activates its paralysing mucus defense mechanism (even though we mean it no harm).

Or the tree frog could be hidden in here

We have carefully scanned this photo and the one at the top for the elusive little quanker, but we cannot find it.  I thought it could, though, make a good alternative to those spot the ball competitions you find in provincial newspapers (it also might make rather a good jigsaw puzzle - all virginia creeper leaves with just one little tree frog hidden among them).  So, "Dear Reader" we will offer a prize of a bottle of our local wine to the first person who successfully locates the frog (Terms and conditions apply - see below).

The prize (minus the glasses)

Terms and conditions:
1. You must have good enough eyesight to read these terms and conditions.
2. Only one prize will be awarded and this will go to the first person to notify the blog by email of the location of the frog in the picture at either the top or the bottom of this posting (NB the proprietor does not know which photo the frog is in if, indeed, it is in either).
3. The prize will be one bottle (75cl) of Domaine de la Garde Rose, which will be available to collect from La Borde Neuve (NB the prize does not include the two glasses shown in the photograph as these are now both broken - see post no. 38)
4. Any members of the proprietor's family or friends may enter this competition as they are the only people likely to be reading this blog.
5. The proprietor will not be held responsible for any untoward acts carried out under the undue influence of alcohol resulting from the consumption of the prize, including (but not restricted to) loss of virginity, the loss of the prize winner's driving licence, loss of job due to insulting or degrading behaviour, loss of partner resulting from inappropriate acts with another person, loss of liberty following illegal activities carried out under the influence of alcohol, loss of life due to an accident or an allergic reaction to  rose wine from the Coteaux de Quercy, or un-planned preganancy. 

39) Strange house guests

This strange little fellow arrived on the door step the other day (uninvited).  It was (apparently) a tree frog.  It looked rather hot so I (rather helpfully/kindly) splashed some cold water on it.  The (tree) frog didn't seem to like this much (presumably because it is not necessarily that wet in trees - as opposed to ponds) and promptly spat some sort of (potentially poisonous) fluid at me, which luckily missed.  It then hopped into the kitchen and jumped several feet onto the wall, where it stuck with gravity-defying sureness.  I had read about bright green tree frogs in the Amazon jungle, whose poison the natives use to lace the tips of their arrows so that their victims become instantly paralysed and then die.  I even seem to remember it was a particularly agonising sort of death, although this may be just my memory or imagination playing tricks.

Whatever the truth concerning Amazonian tree frogs, I was not going to pick up this potentially lethal toxic frog in my hands, particularly after its attempt to paralyse me with a squirt of its noxious mucus.  In the end it seemed to decide, of its own accord, that our kitchen was not a forest and, indeed, it did not even have any trees in it ( I suspect it may have mistaken our 1970's fake oak look-alike kitchen units for a forest of local Quercus)  In great leaps and bounds it went back onto the balcony and then disappeared over the side.  Clearly frogs have to be very wary in France, with the local's penchant for frying their legs as a rather tasty entree.  No doubt they also have to watch out for the many different birds of prey that circle on thermals, searching out juicy morsels in the landscape below.  Not surprising then that their first reaction (particularly when being drenched with cold water) is rather on the aggressive side.  But once he (or she) realised I meant no harm but was merely ignorant, we became the best of friends - it even smiled.

38) Wine tasting

Rose from our local vineyard, Domaine de la Garde

At long last we have got round to the serious business of wine tasting.  The Cahors appellation takes itself quite seriously, but the wine does vary tremendously.  There are several hundred vineyards and so far we have been to two (we are looking forward to trying out the others).  In addition to the official Cahors wines (mostly along the course of the River Lot), there is an area of wines known as Coteaux de Quercy (we are just in this region).

The other week we went to an evening wine festival in Castelnau Montratier.  It was great.  We bought our two wine glasses (above - both of which we've now broken, I broke one, G broke the other) and off we went.  There were lots of producers from both Cahors and the Coteaux de Quercy.  We tried quite a few and bought several bottles.  We also had a rather good supper, sitting in the rain at trestle tables with all the French locals.  We had aligot for the first time and it was delicious.  It is made from a blend of creme fraiche, puréed potatoes, cheese (tomme d'Auvergne) and garlic.  It is traditionally served with Toulouse sausages (which is how we had it, together with a sort of ratatouille).

A no nonsense box of rose from Clos Siguier firmly settled in our fridge

Since then we have visited our nearest vineyard, la Domaine de La Garde (which happens to be rather good), and le Clos Siguier, which is also nearby.  We had come across this one in Montcuq market.  They do a rather good dark rose at 3.80 euros a bottle.  However, we have discovered that they do exactly the same thing in a five litre box.  As can be seen from the photograph above, they do not spend anything unnecessary on fancy packaging - but this does allow them to sell it at the equivalent of about £1.32 a bottle.  You just stick it in the fridge and it will keep for about three or four weeks (if you don't drink it before).  Boxes are better than buying "en vrac" (which is when you just take along your own container for them to fill up).  Boxes have a collapsible plastic bag inside, which allows the wine to come out without any air getting in.  We have bought en vrac, but you really have to drink the wine within three or four days, which can be a bit of a challenge if there are just two of you to get through five litres (or maybe not).

37) Home produce

All of a sudden the walnuts have started to look like proper walnuts.  Despite having only one tree, it seems to produce vast quantities of noix.

They do take quite a lot of cracking, but they are well worth the (quite considerable) effort.

The figs on our (fig) tree have also suddenly started started to swell up and ripen, having been rather worryingly small until recently.  They are really delicious, but I fear they are going to all be ready at once (we are thus investigating methods of drying them).

We have also begun to plant a herb garden.  It may not look much but it was an enormous effort to dig up all the weeds, not to mention a labyrinth of knotted roots formed over years and years of neglect.

Unfortunately, we discovered another hornet's nest.  This time in an old half dead tree, just near the little house again.  These weren't Asiatic hornets, though, just ordinary "European" hornets.  Quite big (and loud) enough to put the fear of God into me.  Straight on the phone to Monsieur Delsol, and he was round the same afternoon.  The mole also seems to be back (together with a friend), and I suspect the explosive charge must have just missed him.  Our amiable assasin is now my best friend, and he has offered to blow up BOTH moles free of charge.

He has already dispatched the poor unfortunate hornets.  I never thought I would feel sorry for a hornet, but he bought me the queen to show me how much bigger than the others it was.  It really did look so very sad.  Once so proud and powerful, ruling a complex community of potential warriors, and now covered in a noxious white powder, and dead.  Very dead.  Probably for the best.  It was right by G's bed of saffron crocuses....... too terrible to contemplate.  But sad none the less.